On November 22 we released IBM Sametime 8.5.2 IFR 1. IFR means "Interim Feature Release" and as part of our very first IFR release (hence "IFR 1") we're bringing to market a rich set of features that complement and augment the themes we set out to deliver on with Sametime 8.5.2 back in May.

The most anticipated of those features is our new IBM Sametime Mobile client for iOS. It is a native client for both iPhone and iPad devices and it's available for download from Apple's App Store. Here's a few screenshots showing what the Sametime contact list, a person's business card and an SUT call look like on an iPhone:

Here's what a chat session looks like on an iPad:

And this is what an SUT call looks like on an iPad:

Sametime
8.5.2 IFR 1 runs on top of Sametime 8.5.2. It won't run on top of 8.5.1
or 8.0.2 or 7.5.1 or anything besides 8.5.2.

In addition to the new
mobile client for iOS Sametime 8.5.2 IFR 1 brings to the table other
capabilities that you've already seen described in previous blog
postings. This one, however, it is probably the one most people have
been waiting for and we're very proud to bring it to market. The reviews
have been very positive so far and we already have a large number of
customers testing it out.

If you want to play with it just go to the App Store, download the app and make it point to Greenhouse. Here's how:

I got this nice little PNG from the Lotusphere 2012 team that says "I'm a Speaker":

I think it's pretty cool and I'm already using it as part of my email
signature. It's great that the Lotusphere team decided to do this for
next year. They're also collecting Social Business stories, which I also think it's pretty cool. You may want to check it out here.

My session, ID213 - What's New in IBM Sametime is scheduled for Tuesday, January 17 at 3:30 PM. Feel free to drop by if you're attending the conference. But before you do that, please make sure to attend John Delpizzo's session, INV209 - Strategy and Roadmap for IBM Sametime, on Monday, January 16 at 5:00 PM. It'll give you the necessary context you'll need to make sense of what I'm going to talk about. We'll publish a full list of all the Sametime-related sessions on this blog once we get the final list. Stay tuned.

Blair Pleasant writes on No Jitter (here) about how UC and Social Business have more in common than most people realize. She quotes Alistair Rennie on how "...three years from now we won't call this social business--it'll just be business." I happen to agree.

I've said many times that social interaction patterns are natural to us while linear interactions, the way we've worked with each other for years, are learned behavior.

In our natural environment (home) we use people-to-people interactions to communicate, collaborate and deal with each other. When we are at work, we use people-to-process and people-to-information interactions as the primary means of getting something done and we use people-to-people interactions when we need to. Social Business reverses this paradigm and makes people-to-people interactions the center of the universe, the way it should be.

Earlier in 2011, we told you about changes in the way Yahoo! Messenger federates with IBM Sametime. As you may recall, your IBM Sametime Gateway integrates directly with the Yahoo! Messenger servers through a single sign-on capability, letting your employees use their corporate Sametime identity to exchange presence information and text chats with Yahoo! Messenger users. Yahoo! has communicated their intention to shut this service down on or near mid-December 2011.

IBM planned to deliver a plug-in to the Sametime Connect client that would allow users to exchange text chats with Yahoo! Messenger users through a new Yahoo! Messenger IM API. Unfortunately, despite diligent efforts by both parties, IBM and Yahoo! have not been able to agree to terms that would allow us to use the Messenger IM API on conditions that are mutually agreeable. When Yahoo! shuts down their SIP infrastructure this month, your IBM Sametime Gateway will no longer work with that service.

Please note that the Sametime Gateway will continue to function as normal for AOL, Google, XMPP based services, Microsoft OCS and other Sametime communities.

As Lisa mentioned in her last posting, IBM Sametime 8.5.2 IFR 1 also brings support for browser access to meetings on Android tablets and iPads. Just so you can see how cool that is, here's a couple of screenshots.

Now, with Sametime 8.5.2 Interim Feature Release 1, we've made it much easier to know who is speaking during a meeting. In Sametime meeting rooms, an "active speaker" icon now displays next to the name of the participant who is currently speaking during a call.

Yesterday, Marlon blogged about SOME of our iOS news for Sametime –the client on iPhones and iPads. As a Mac aficionado / albeit late* but happy member of the Apple fold I was personally most excited about this. And if you read further in my note you will find something else very exciting for iPad and Sametime users. And yes my Google Android friends, there is something new for you too! Although I'm in love w/ my Mac and iPhone and truly am most excited about ST and SUT on the iPhone, I would like to also summarize some of the other great features that came out with this release for everyone on November 22nd. Some of these features folks are even more excited about then the iOS Client!!?? Many many across the world were eagerly awaiting and requesting...(can you hear the drum roll)?

….You've seen some great posts from our engineer and end user help writer Lauren with details on how to use these features but here they are again....in one long blog...post our mobile press release yesterday.

BRAND NEW to Sametime you can now send offline messages from your Sametime chat window and view offline messages sent to you when you log in. (Even iOS and Anrdoid users can receive offline messages on their devices! Yes I am throwing more Apple in). Also, received offline message text will be included in chat responses so that it is very easy and quick to see the context of the response.

Our development and design team created a great UI for enhanced file sharing features. You can now send files, groups of files, or entire folders to another Sametime user. Or in a multi-way chat, you can send the same file to several people at once, and see the progression independently still. They also built a brand new organizational tree viewof your corporate directory based contacts.

And for the Administrator, of course there are policy controls and server settings for offline messaging, file and folder sharing.

No, we didn't forget meetings!

There are new Meeting room features for both the rich client and the browser based desktop meeting experience. This includes an Active Speaker indicator in the meeting room which will quickly and clearly let you know who is speaking. Don't guess who is speaking and no need to ping your boss or co-worker saying "who just said that"? Also when launching your meeting room, owners now have the flexibility to decide whether their room is video enabled or just keep the selected default setting.

And this one is really great - upon opening an Audio Video meeting, meeting room owners can now start a meeting with all participants on Auto-Mute . Participants will join in a muted state and can optionally disable mute themselves. Now we don't have to say - can everyone please go on mute?

And speaking of meetings...back to iOS and Android...I promised there was one more thing...on your Android tablets and Apple iPads you can now also participate in, create, and lead browser based meetings.

A picture is worth a thousand words so we brought you images yesterday of the new client in Marlon's post, but for those that like to also read a bulleted list –here is what is in store for you with the new client:

New native client for Sametime for Apple iPhone and iPad mobile devices includes:

o Presence and instant messaging so you can:

 Participate in individual or group chat

 Take and receive photos from the chat window or send from your photo library

 Get Background notification of new messages

 Leverage Quickfind to locate a contact and initiate communication

 Send and receive announcements

 Create customized presence status

o Chat history that is retrievable and also appears in active chat windows

o Ability to add new individual contacts or groups to your contact list

o A business card view from which you can directly:

 Send a chat to an individual or group

 Send an announcement to an individual or group

 Add or remove individual from your Sametime contact and or favorites list

 Add individual contact information or everyone's contact information in a group at once to your Apple device contact list

For more information and more features then I mentioned, please see our announcement links below and more importantly upgrade so you can use them. We are really excited to be able to bring you all these new great features this year versus waiting for next year. Enjoy!!! It is great managing a product you actually get to use all day every day. Now if I can just get my daughter to let me borrow her iPad so I can join my next meeting on it instead of my Mac...

If you're a meeting room owner about to start the conference call for your meeting, it's easy to set the call so that all meeting participants join the call muted. In this case, only the meeting room owner's voice can be heard on the call, until other participants unmute themselves.

In addition, room owners now have the flexibility to turn video on or off for the call when they start the call, rather than having a single setting per meeting room.

As I recently posted, meeting room participants now see the new Leave Meeting button, which they can click to leave the meeting.

With Sametime 8.5.2 Interim Feature Release1, meeting room owners and managers still see an End Meeting button; they do not see a Leave Meeting button. However, clicking the End Meeting button now gives meeting room owners and managers the option to either leave the meeting or end the meeting for everyone. This gives meeting room owners and managers more flexibility for managing their meetings, for example, if they have to leave the current meeting for another commitment, but want to let others continue in the room.

If you have Sametime Advanced and you see an Organization View panel in your Sametime client, click it to see a hierarchical view of your organization.

Click to expand and collapse individual nodes in the organization view to show or hide contacts in that part of the organization.

Here's what this might look like:

You can also hover your mouse on a contact to see the business card and right-click a contact or node and select an action to perform, just as you do can with your Sametime contacts. You can also drag and drop people and even entire groups from the organization view right into your contact list.

Administrators must set a policy to turn on the Organization View feature: